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New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

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Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#491

Post by itsoktocry »

moolcool wrote: post #307
HumblyTossed wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro 14" 14ACN6. Got one at Costco over a year ago for around $700US. Runs Pop_OS! really well. Weight is very much light enough for me. Edit: There is one downside I found. I replaced the 512GB SSD with 1TB and nearly needed stitches because the bottom plate was so sharp. Oh and I just looked it up, it's listed at 3.04lbs

A big factor is how these machines age too, though. 4 years ago the 2020 M1 Macbook Air dropped, and it's still a fantastic computer today. On the other hand, I don't think I would enjoy using a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad today

>I don't think I would enjoy using a 4 year old Lenovo Ideapad today

Why not? I have a M1 Max supplied by my employer, and it's awesome. But guess what I use as my daily driver? An old t450s, running Ubuntu. Does everything I need, I can fix and replace anything in it (including the battery), and the keyboard is awesome. I think it's 10 years old.

I mean, for most of the work I do my computer is just a client anyway.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#492

Post by 015a »

izacus wrote: post #385
numbers wrote: post #355

I was recently buying a Dell laptop for my sister and it boggles my mind how most other companies (maybe Framework is an except) still have dozens or even 100s of SKUs for consumer laptops. I didn't enjoy the process of looking through dozens of various lines that Dell has and then other companies like Lenovo and HP earlier in the process, just to find a "mid-range usable computer with a decent screen". If you didn't…

Oh come on, you're overexaggerating a bit. If you follow your pattern with Apple, you'll end up with a measly 8GB/256GB model which will only be useful for basic browsing. (And with more and more Electron apps, might struggle even with that once you hop onto a video call.)

Anyone who says the 8/256 Airs are throwaway machines has literally never used one. Full stop. You have an opinion about what 8gb of memory is capable of, which is influenced entirely by Intel CPUs and Windows. It hits different on the M1 platform and MacOS.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#493

Post by markstos »

fkkffdddd wrote: post #449
markstos wrote: post #427

I just had a MacBook Air M1 die suddenly, perhaps because the case has no heat venting. All data was lost because the storage is not removable. Replaced it with a Framework which will more repairable and has removable storage. Basics matter.

I’d still do a backup, yes, even if storage is removable.

No need to choose. Framework drives are removable and backupable.

Apple choose to make a nonrepairable, non-upgradable product.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#494

Post by dividedbyzero »

bowsamic wrote: post #373
samatman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you can also pay $400 for a number of acceptable alternatives, and about $600-$700 for a machine with a discrete GPU. People love to say this without linking to a model. That's because the models in this price range are obviously not in the same weight class as a MacBook. Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... lite…

> Edit: Weight class and weight-of-laptop are not the same thing. I don't know how to explain the idiom "weight class" so that the more... literal-minded Hacker News commenters will understand what I mean, but let's start there. Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it

> Just don't ever use a metaphor on Hacker News. People will always misinterpret it

I've always wondered why that is. No other community I'm active in insists so much on explicitly spelling out everything and very literal language – most will actually reward playing with language, if done well. Writing as if targeting Commander Data seems to work quite well though.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#495

Post by threeseed »

jshier wrote: post #490
threeseed wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video transcoding is done on the GPU and has nothing to do with memory/storage. And there isn't a trend towards more Electron apps. Increasingly developers are using Tauri which is Rust based and extremely lightweight.

Is there a single popular Tauri app? What are the most popular?

The point is that it's growing:

https://github.com/tauri-apps/awesome-tauri

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#496

Post by geodel »

Meninoyo wrote: post #371
jm4 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even worse than that is that they still only put 8 GB RAM in the base and middle options.

I'm pretty sure that's their gatekeeping. I looked at the price for m3 and if it would have 16gig it would literally be perfect for just 1k but nope 8 more gigs cost you an arm and a leg

You really are in market for Apple laptop and 200 dollar more for extra 8GM RAM is arm and a leg for you?

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#497

Post by spaceman_2020 »

anakaine wrote: post #468
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally made the switch to Apple after being thoroughly frustrated with Windows laptops. It's not even close to a competition. Macbooks are just so far ahead of everyone else that you can't even compare them. Most Windows laptops have abysmal batteries, to the point that you can barely call them laptops. The trackpads are downright unusable. The keyboards are a hit or a miss. And for some reason, so many companies…

I'm one of those industry long timers who can and will use just about anything, and has occasionally over the years owned macs of various form factors. For the past decade thanks to corporate work I've been entirely Windows and Linux based. I picked my daughter up an m1 macbook air about a year ago. It was an absolute delight of a machine to use. Light weight, no fans, no hot bits during general usage, long battery l…

I picked up a M3 Macbook Pro and this thing works like an absolute beast.

I currently have Photoshop, Illustrator, VSCode, multiple Chrome windows - each with 20-40 tabs - and this thing is not even sweating.

I get 8-10 hours of useful work out of it even on battery.

Completely changed the way I work

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#498

Post by threeseed »

eurekin wrote: post #304
jm4 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even worse than that is that they still only put 8 GB RAM in the base and middle options.

That's so extremely backwards in relation to everything else it's mind boggling. 16 gb being considered and priced at premium, where I had a single chrome tab eating 3gb easily few time's recently.

So stop using Chrome.

There are other browsers that are far more memory efficient.

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#499

Post by AnthonyMouse »

CharlesW wrote: post #456
bmitc wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever tried to trade in an Apple prdoduct? They ask you to enter the serial number and then bizarrely ask you to indentify to device. You basically have to refer to MacRumors to get it right. Apple has the same problem, if not worse. Dell has XPS 13, XPS 15, and XPS 17 and now the plus designation. It's pretty easy.

> Have you ever tried to trade in an Apple product? They ask you to enter the serial number and then bizarrely ask you to indentify to device. Yes, Apple changed to a randomized serial number format in 2021. https://www.macrumors.com/2021/04/14/apple-preapres-for-rand... So, if you have a device made after that transition and Apple doesn't already know the details (e.g. because you didn't buy it direct), they'll also…

But they manufactured it. They couldn't keep a database mapping serial numbers to specs?

Re: New 13- and 15‑inch MacBook Air with M3 chip

#500

Post by yumraj »

lynguist wrote: post #464
yumraj wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what’s worse is Apple, or is it random self-styled influencers , spreading the false narrative that Apple Silicon magically requires less RAM and people actually believing that.

No, but Apple tends to have faster RAM (way more bandwidth), faster SSDs, and macOS tends to have a better memory compression algorithm.

> macOS tends to have a better memory compression algorithm

Compared to what? Linux? Windows?

Are there any published benchmarks anywhere, otherwise this just proves my point above.

> Apple tends to have faster RAM (way more bandwidth), faster SSDs

Yes, sure, due to its integrated nature, but that does not reduce the RAM requirement. My 8GB M1 MBA, which is used as a home browsing-only laptop, is almost always in yellow on memory pressure once we have a few tabs open.

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